… and there’s no SLO about it…
While living in Slovenia a while back, I came to understand more about the national psyche by observing (if possible from a safe distance) the locals in their favourite mode of ego transport. A few things have changed since: the infrastructure is much improved (for instance more and better motorways, parking in Ljubljana), and fines are much, much heavier for speeding and/or driving while under the affluence of incahol. But nothing much has changed in the attitude of the drivers – so I’ll reproduce here what I wrote back then:
Driving in the SLO lane…
The first rule of driving in Slovenia is Don’t Get Involved.
This has nothing to do with the trading of verbal insults or even the remote possibility of them escalating into fisty-cuffs (given that road rage in Slovenia is nearly always confined to the security of one’s own tank vehicle).
It simply means that you should drive your usual safe, considerate way, while you let them kill each other in their own way.
Speed
Speed limits are quite generous in Slovenia, so it is fairly easy to stick to them (if they were any higher, you would be in danger of overshooting the country). Of course, Slovenian drivers see speed limits as polite reminders to lesser drivers – foreigners, women and on-duty policemen – to keep to the right, allowing the locals to pass at around 100kph faster, as is their inalienable right.
As they say, “Life is too short.” And for many of them, it’s even shorter than that.
Overtaking
Surely, the ultimate expression of self for the Slovenian driver. The practice of overtaking has nothing whatsoever to do with the need to get somewhere fast: Slovenian life (outside of a car, that is) is such that things happen when they happen, to the extent that pootling would be expected to be the preferred method of travel. No, the act of overtaking is encapsulated in the act itself. It has no other use than for the overtaker to experience a momentary feeling of superiority over the overtakee, and the experienced driver (i.e. having driven for no less than three days) will achieve a Zen-like state as they hurtle past mere mortals. Indeed, the very best of them actually reach Nirvana in a supreme moment of oneness with their own mortality.
For us outsiders, if we are aware of the technique employed by the locals, we can easily and safely keep out of their way, while enjoying the display of daft primitivism on show.
Motorways generally consist of just two lanes: the inner one for trucks and other slow-moving vehicles (SMVs), while the outer acts as a kind of ‘catapult’ lane, where faster cars are slipstreamed by even faster cars until they move over and so on and so on and on and on… and that’s just the ring road around Ljubljana.
If you have just overtaken an SMV or two and find yourself in the outer lane, you’ll be wondering why, when you are maybe 5-10 kph over the speed limit already, you look in your rear-view mirror (caution: the driver behind you is more stupid than he looks), to see the headlights of The Devil Car from Hell bearing down on you at the same speed (i.e. an absolute speed of 260 kph). If you are not quick enough to move over with the rest of the SMVs, the Hell Car will appear to attach itself to your rear bumper, giving you the car-stare equivalent of, “What you gotta ask yourself is, ‘Do I feel lucky?’ – well, do ya, punk?”
Now, you may possibly be driving an Aston Martin Vantage while the following car is a Renault Pongo, Skoda Twinky or just Noddy and Bigears out for a pootle, but the correct answer is always, “Actually, I don’t believe in luck, but I do believe in your obviously misguided notion that you should be allowed out in public in charge of your own legs, let alone anything more powerful than a mouse’s fart”. So move over.
Parking
Just because speed isn’t involved, doesn’t mean that Slovenians are not interested in asserting their rights as individuals when they need to leave their precious car somewhere. For us, the most important thing to understand is that, until the parking space you are in the process of turning into is actually, physically and totally occupied by your car, it still belongs to anybody else who is faster, cagier and more assured than you are.
I have personally been in a situation – twice – whereby we were backing into a parking space, only to be literally overtaken – that is, the drivers had to drive around us very fast and very accurately to nose their piece of junk into what we thought was our parking space. And don’t think that you can remonstrate or reason: possession is all (plus there’s that overtaking thing again). On both occasions, I had my arm in plaster and my wife was eight months pregnant, so we were a tad gobsmacked when we were told to bog off (in traditional, disgusting Serbian swearwords, natch). Your only choice is to drive away, cursing as loudly as you like, as the other driver will be deaf to the likes of you.
As for where you’re allowed to park, as usual, the laws for you are exactly as stated, while for Slovenians, they’re up for interpretation. That is, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do… but when in Ljubljana, never, but never do as the locals do.”
Generally speaking, do not park on pavements, roundabouts, river banks, lakesides, verges, hard shoulders or driveways. These have been provided for the express use of the locals, who have a god-given right to park their cars anywhere they damn-well please.
Technique
Steering: Most of the time, Slovenians use the steering wheel much the same as the rest of us – using both hands to turn the wheel in the direction of travel. Until it comes to tight turns, parking, hairpins or any situation that would normally test an octopus, let alone two-armed beings… it’s the one-hand turn. Placing the flat of the hand on the wheel, pressing hard enough to gain purchase, and turning the wheel as if it were some kind of air-lock type thing – it gives the ‘driver’ a sense of being both in control and completely cool at the same time.
At the same time as being out of control and looking as cool as someone wearing D&G sunglasses on their head at midnight, that is.
The technique is now known as the Ljubljana Wave.
Mobile Phones: Of course, for the rest of us, it is illegal to use a mobile phone while driving. But as most Slovenians know, not only is reception much better when on the move, but one’s ego is much improved. It is said that the most used expression on mobile phones in the UK is, “I’m on the train.” Guess what it is in Slovenia?
“I’m in the hospital.”
| Sign | English | Slovenian |
| 50/60 | The limit in urban and built-up areas (50 for most roads, 60 for trunk roads). Should ensure that you don’t kill children, dogs or anyone who has to walk in the road because there is no pavement. | The speed limit imposed on foreigners, as all Slovenians have the reflexes of a cat on coffee – “… and anyway, if anyone knows my limits, it’s me”. |
| 130 | The speed limit on motorways is quite generous and would allow you to get anywhere fast enough, in one piece. | The minimum speed any self-respecting Slovenian needs to drive: the maximum speed is obviously indicated on the far right of the dial. That’s what it’s there for, silly. |
 |
One way only | One way only. Unless you need to go the other way. Does not apply to any two-wheeled mode of transport. |
 |
No Parking | Parking |
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No Parking or Stopping | Parking (which obviously requires stopping). There may be a sign below this, which, when translated, will specify exclusions (e.g. residents only). But only when translated: in Slovenian it means, ‘Parking’. |
 |
Cycles Only | Parking |
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Pedestrians Only | Parking |
 |
Give Way | Hmmm… no, you’ve got me there |
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Bends ahead | Weeeee! |
 |
Motorway | Race Track |
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No Overtaking | Black cars have precedence over red cars. Or the other way around. |
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Wild animals – take care | Dinner – take home |
Bicycles
Many people, when they first visit one of the larger Slovenian cities (OK, Ljubljana), are quite impressed by the number of cycle lanes. Until they step onto a pavement, that is.
If one thing typifies the hegemony of the car in Slovenia, it’s the cycle lane. The Slovenians, in their wisdom, started with the concept ‘car’, and asked where it could go. The correct answer, of course, is ‘everywhere’. So they needed to tighten up the question: where can only a car go?
The road.
Anything larger than a car is an honorary car, so they get to use the road too. Anything smaller (and that includes motorbikes of under a zillion cc) is demoted to the cycle lane… which is not a part of the road: it’s a part of the pavement. And Slovenians being Slovenians, if they have wheels under them, they have the right to go anywhere – as fast as they damn well please. Given that quite often, the cycle lane runs out – making a stretch of road car-only – cyclists are expected to ride on the pavement itself (as if they would get off and walk!).
Walk here at your peril.
The approach to riding bicycles in the cities is somewhat cavalier – without the rapiers and the floppy hats, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
The Slovenian cycling proficiency test consists of riding a bike (properly specified, of course: rusty chain, flapping mudguard, flat tyres, full carrier bag over the handlebars) the wrong way along a one-way street, in a blizzard, carrying an umbrella, talking on a mobile phone, while smoking a cigarette. I’ve seen this done. With some panache, it has to be said.
Buses
There is one vehicle on the road that trumps all others: the bus. It always has right of way. If you see a bus ahead, parked at a bus stop, approach with caution – nay, trepidation. When the driver has had his fill of passengers, he will, with one elegant movement, close the doors, indicate and stamp ’em and steer. If he uses his offside mirror, it will be to see who had attempted to occupy the space currently occupied by his bus… and whether their vehicle is in a fit state to proceed.
Why oh why oh why?
There are a number of reasons why Slovenians are such appalling drivers, the first of which must take into consideration the fact that Slovenia has the fourth highest per capita suicide rate IN THE WORLD. While that’s sinking in, consider further that that equates to one in twenty-five of the population with a wish to leave early… so how many might be thinking, “Life is shit… let’s see how fast this thing will go”?
Another factor must be that, uniquely for a Slavic people, Slovenians are a rather repressed bunch. Until they get in their tanks cars that is. From the moment a Slovenian hears the sound of a car door cutting them off from the rest of humanity, the car becomes an exoskeleton with which they can impose their indomitable will on the poor unfortunates not occupying one of the passenger seats.
But we’re not finished yet.
Being a young – and more importantly, small – country, the citizens can’t quite bring themselves to believe that their own country-folk have any right to hold any authority over them… especially whilst driving the special love of their lives (until very recently, Slovenians have turned the concept of the nuclear family on its head: one child and 2.4 cars. I say until recently, as it now seems that they are having more kids… but the ratio remains the same: after all, the kids need cars too.).
Local drivers therefore see road signs (even those giving directions) as simply being an invitation to an argument, or at best a point of view with which they will invariably beg to differ.
Many Slovenian drivers believe that the laws that govern road use are provided as a kind of instruction manual, to be tossed aside in the same way as they would discard instructions on how to construct a set of shelves.
The trouble is, they eventually have to obey the laws of physics instead.
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